


Big Sister's Rhyme

by HappyWonKinobi



Category: BioShock
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s), Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, overpowered main character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyWonKinobi/pseuds/HappyWonKinobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman left behind from Rapture. Only thing is, she was never meant to be there in the first place, and now her horrors, her nightmare, has followed her home. Well, at least she has Plasmids! *Rated T because, well, it's Bioshock, and ADAM-induced insanity is terrible*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hello again, Rhyme

Don't make a sound,

Don't say a word.

Splicer's comin' by,

He thinks you're a bird.

Big Sister's here to stay,

She'll stay right by you.

And if you close your eyes real tight,

Maybe it'll all come true.

* * *

Thumps resounded amongst the halls as she breathed heavily from exertion. Fear spiked through her as she heard a sound vaguely reminiscent of a whale's call.

But this was no Whale's call. No, it was something infinitely worse.

She scrambled down another hallway, a screech blasting her eardrums from the area ahead of her. There were no side passages to these tunnels. There was no way out.

She scrambled to find a way out, knowing the effort was useless, and then tried to find a way to create a trap of some sort, one where she wasn't going to end up dead.

A second screech blasted her ears to near deafness. The thumps and moans were louder and quicker. Time was running out.

Wild eyes tore across the nearby scenery, the only thing she saw of note were the fishes watching her in interest, perhaps hunger.

A third screech blasted her from behind, right before something long and sharp and infintessimally small stabbed her though the back and out her chest, leaving her helpless as she watched the lumbering behemoth plod down the hall straight towards her. Through the pain, a final fact pierced her mind as surely as the thing had pierced her back. She was finished.

The creature behind her raised her up higher for the approaching behemoth as it glared from his one glowing eye, lifted up his drill, and plunged the sharp and heavy tool straight into her chest before the screaming of the motor filled her ears and very being as it spun in her chest and the pain consumed her. She screamed.

* * *

Rachel Dodge shot up in bed, a scream clawing it's way out of her throat before she clapped a hand over her mouth, trying to breath, tears running down her cheeks. She didn't want to wake up her neighbors. Didn't want to worry them. They were such nice people. They shouldn't have to deal with this.

She slowly arose from her nicely made yet inexpensive bed and stepped over to her shower in the bathroom attached to the bedroom. She didn't mind that she was usually a late sleeper, partly because she didn't usually take showers in the morning, or really much care of herself at all beyond eating and sleeping this past week, and she liked having her showers - well, she didn't really wanna call the temperature "lukewarm", but definitely cooler than your average hot shower without being cold beyond the slightest chill. It reminded her of the ocean just to the east of her apartment.

Though, now those happy memories with her dad, the skipper of a boat, were slightly tarnished by nightmares under that same sea.

As she left the bathroom, dripping wet and towel-less while caught between being lethargic after such a long extended and fitful "rest" and energetic after the shower, she pondered what to do with her life. She just didn't know.

A snap was heard as she stumbled to the ground, a hand over her suddenly fluttering heart as it seemed to try to stop as a sharp drive of pain flooded that area of her chest, flaring up with the slightest breath or movement and keeping her paralyzed in fear with her eyes wide and her body unable to move without extreme pain. Shallow breaths filled and fell from her lungs for a few painful, fearful minutes before the pain began to subside and her heart began to behave normally again. For a moment, she thought she caught the smell of the sea on her nose, but she must have imagined it. A moment later saw her on her feet and moving normally, though paranoid that the painful feeling would suddenly come back.

That was her first sign that she'd be in pain at all. It came completely by surprise, caught her very off-guard.

She did not like it, not at all.

The hands of the clock catching her notice, her eyes widened; She really needed to get moving if she wanted to get to class on time. Instead of taking the time to make herself breakfast like usual, she just grabbed a can of premade pasta and a plastic fork and before throwing on a red shirt and a pair of tan cargo pants, skipping underwear for expediency but taking her leather jacket; she didn't want to deal with Spring's cold spats without protection just yet. She ran out the door as she pulled the top off of the can and began to eat it as she ran towards her destination: College.

True, being an Art Major with a few extra miscellaneous courses meant things were fairly relaxed, at least in her opinion, she still did not want to be late and ruin her otherwise perfect reputation. When she was finished with her 'breakfast', she threw away the can in a nearby garbage bin and hoped that her memory was correct in that her art supplies were still in her car, a weatherbeaten white convertable from the 90's that was rather dependable which she had, if memory served, left here for the weekend. She hadn't had any travelling plans, and life had followed suit. Mostly.

On checking the passenger side of her car she found her backpack, much to her happiness, and pulled it (and the art supplies inside) out and ran for her first class of the day. Normally, she'd be looking forward to it, as it was usually just them sketching live nudes, but she wasn't sure it'd work out well today. She wasn't feeling her best, and all she wanted right now was to get that thing out of her head.

She sat herself down in her usual spot, set up a canvas on the easel in front of her, and began to sketch. It was a scene that appeared in her memory that was trying it's absolute best to haunt her. She wouldn't let it beat her, that's all there was to it.

Satisfied with the basics of the sketch, she cleaned up the edges and began to color. She never noticed when her fellow students or her teacher walked in because she was so focused on beating it.

She was pulled from her focus when she heard a gasp behind her. She pulled her attention from the canvas before her and the colored pencils in her hands to look behind her at her teacher. Her look of concentration melted into a sorrowful expression at her teacher's horror. "Oh, I'm sorry. I meant to be done with this before class, but I guess I lost track of time."

"Why would you create such a thing?!" Mrs. Kelsen asked, horror and disgust flooding through her normally pleasant airy voice.

Rachel sighed, a tired expression on her face. Her teacher's dread and dismay was understandable. It was a fairly accurate depiction of a dead body on the floor, his guts spilling out before him, while a whale floated by in the background. "I'm not asking you to understand, Mrs. Kelsen. See-" She cut herself off, trying to find words to explain something she didn't fully understand herself. Finally, she settled on, "You know how, for some people, if you write down what's in your head and what's bothering you, the negative emotions will just flow out of you and into whatever it was that you put your thoughts onto, letting you just move on." At the artist's tentative nod, she continued. "Well, that's what I'm trying to do here. I can't get this picture out of my head, and I thought that if I drew it in detail, I'd be able to deal with it, like it would finally leave my head. Does that make any sense?" She asked finally, a little sheepish and afraid of the possible answer.

Mrs. Kelsen looked unsure for a moment, then sighed. "If that is what you think is best, then you have my blessing to try. I know how bad it can be to experience trauma and need to get past it. It's why I'm an art teacher, after all."

Rachel smiled a tired smile at her teacher. "Thank you."

"Just, don't submit it for an assignment or for an art contest, okay?" Mrs. Kelsen advised worriedly.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I know better." Rachel assured her. "I'm just using this to move on. For the assignment you gave us over break, however," She paused to reach down into her backpack and pull a poster tube out, which she handed to Mrs. Kelsen. "I saw a performance like you asked and made this based off of a scene in it."

Cautiously, understandable due to the picture in front of Rachel, which she had turned back to to see if she could deal with whatever demon had caused the picture, Mrs. Sandra Kelsen (which was, incidentally, her maiden name) pulled the piece of canvas from the tube and unrolled it, gasping at the sight of it. "Rachel, this is, this is  _beautiful_!" It was a scene of several people in masquerade masks, some in black leotards with red masks, some in white, billowing clothes with blue masks, with lightning pulsing from the hands of the white ones and fireballs flying from those in black, beautifully rendered on a stage that had an oceanic seafloor as a backdrop behind floor-to-ceiling glass with numerous examples of seabed flora and fauna, the strangeness of the plants and the presence of a sperm whale in the background making it all the more ethereal and impossibly beautiful. "When did you make this?"

"Over the weekend after." Rachel said absentmindedly. "Sander Cohen may have been a complete psycho, but nobody could ever disagree that he was something of a genius when it came to the stage. A harsh and twisted genius, but brilliant nonetheless." She added in an impression of white wings around the dead body by lightening the colors near the shoulders of the man on her easel. He was dead, after all, so why not?

"What do you mean, twisted?"

"He once-" Rachel's eyes went wide as she cut herself off, a pensive look coming over her as she tried to keep herself from continuing, her pastels stilling. She hoped that Mrs. Kelsen wouldn't notice or would just take the hint and move on, but she got no such luck.

"He once what?"

Rachel bit her lip, prevaricating on whether or not to continue. Finally, she decided to go with a "baby explanation". "Some of his performances were a little more realistic than they should've been." She said carefully as she finished a shadowy tan-colored figure in the background of her "self-therapy", adding in a beam of yellow light coming from the "head". "If this picture is too much for you, then I really shouldn't continue." Her eyes slid closed as a soundless yawn escaped barely parted lips before she shook herself awake again. When they closed again almost immediately after, she sighed and mechanically took down the picture on the easel, rolling it up and putting it into her oversized backpack to deal with later. "I'm sorry Mrs. Kelsen, but I'm really tired. Didn't get much rest last night."

"I understand Rachel." Sandra said as she patted Rachel's shoulder. "There are times when I don't feel safe in my own home, and I keep a cot here for those nights and days when I need it. It's in my office, and you can use it for today."

Rachel's tired smile showed her heart on her sleeve. "Thank you, professor."

* * *

Rachel moaned as she settled into her seat. She had woken up five minutes ago at Mrs. Kelsen's prodding, her airy voice reminding her that she had other classes to attend today, and Landscapes was one of them. She glanced at the whiteboard at the head of the class and groaned as she figured that it didn't matter at all whether or not she actually participated today. She let her head slump down onto her forearms, wishing for a low sound to lull her to sleep. She didn't need the aggravation of the daylight. She just felt tired and worn out. To be honest, she hadn't gotten much more rest on Mrs. Kelsen's cot than she had last night.

"Well hello to you too." A bright and familiar voice said to her left. She flipped them the bird before settling down to try and sleep. The girl scoffed. "Looks like someone got out on the wrong side of bed." She noted scornfully.

"More like the wrong side of Rapture." Rachel mumbled to herself grumpily before she raised her head to look at the girl. Stylishly cut red t-shirt, almost knee-length black skirt (relatively conservatively cut), and black heels to go with a couple of silvery bangles per wrist, a hip-height shiny tanned leather purse hanging from her shoulder and amethyst earrings to complement her updid shorter black hair and semi-regal face (with tastefully applied makeup around brown eyes and lips appropriate for her face, rather than poofy or pouty) made up the image of a friend of hers, Sophie. How they'd stayed friends since Kindergarten with how they'd changed, especially since Sofie was rich and into fashion while Rachel was not, was more than a little beyond her.

Of course, Sofie didn't know just how much she had changed. Not yet.

After all, how much could one person change in just one week?

"I'm sorry Soph, I'm just grumpy." She said, trying to mean the apology, but not summoning up quite enough energy to do so. "Tired too." She added sleepily as she set her head down again. "Have been all week." She muttered the last bit into her sleeve, hiding a yawn.

With that, she was oblivious to the rest of the world. She was still awake - she hadn't slept right in awhile, and especially not last night or earlier today - but she was finally getting some rest. Maybe she just needed some daylight, or other light, to sleep.

Her eyes snapped open some time later. Her nostrils flared as she tried to identify the smell that had shaken her to awareness. It was... salty - no, briney. Brine. Not all. She sniffed again, nobody noticing because her head was still surrounded by her arms and everyone else really only paid attention to themselves. Umm, chocolate. chocolate mixed with... cigar smoke, which had only a touch of nicotene. Then comes the slight smell of blood and decay, mixed with a smell she could only describe as innocence.

No way.

No fucking way.

Not possible.

Not in the least.

Dimly, she heard Mrs. Robinson, her Landscapes teacher who only happened to teach art when she wasn't teaching advanced math courses and also happened to care for her students a great deal, say, "Well, class, we have a new student to welcome. She recently transferred from another college to broaden her horizons. I hope that you will give a warm welcome to Elizabeth Silversterson."

"Actually, it's Silvesterson, like the son of the Looney Toons cat Silvester." Musical tones coming from a teenaged mouth electrified her spine. There was absolutely no way in which this was remotely possible, and yet there was no possible way she could be anyone else. Rachel lifted her head as "Elizabeth" began to speak again. "But since we're all going to be friends, you can just call me-"

"Lizzy!" Before she knew it, Rachel was right in front of the blue-eyed blonde and hugging her closely.

The other girl gasped for a second before returning the hug viciously. "Oh, Songbird! I missed you!"

The world seemed to stop moving completely as she held the younger girl in her arms. All of a sudden, everything was right in the world.

Unfortunately, Reality had to rear it's ugly face. Again.

"I take it you two know each other." Mrs. Robinson said dryly.

A blush formed on Rachel's face, but she was loathe to end the hug. She finally had a little peace, and the person she'd been missing was in her arms once again, safe and sound. She didn't want to let go.

"Yeah, she saved my butt so many times while we were-" Lizzy paused before she sighed sadly. "While in a bad part of town that neither of us wanted to be in. It wasn't a happy time."

Rachel snorted and nodded before curling in closer, cuddling her head with Lizzy's neck. That was an understatement.

Lizzy made to pull away and, reluctantly, Rachel acquiesced to the silent request. Lizzy smiled at her before something made her frown. Instantly, Rachel really wanted to shoot whatever it was that had caused that.

"You haven't been sleeping." Lizzy stated.

Oh. Well, that she kinda can't shoot, but oh well. At least Lizzy was still safe.

Rachel shrugged. "I'm alright."

"No, you're not." Lizzy insisted. "The last time you looked like this you almost passed out on me because you wouldn't admit that you needed to sleep! You are going back into your seat, closing your eyes, and sleeping, you hear me?"

Rachel opened her mouth to protest but Mrs. Robinson beat her to the punch. "Not while in class."

Lizzy turned to the teacher. "Okay, firstly, this is art. To my knowledge, no one does anything important here, unless you count catching up with friends. Secondly, I'm pretty sure she already knows what you're gonna teach today. And thirdly," She gestured towards Rachel. "Can't you see she's dead on her feet? A little slip in her grades is acceptable compared to losing so much sleep that you can barely stand. She needs her rest." She opened her mouth to continue, but then stopped herself, closed her eyes, and took a deep, calming breath. When she opened her eyes, they were much calmer. "Look, I'm sorry about snapping at you, but we're a little too protective of each other to just take an attack of any type calmly. And while I'm sure you didn't mean to, you did insult her."

"No she didn't." Rachel said firmly. "She just stated a school rule."

Lizzy gave her a slightly arch look, those baby blues boring into her as Rachel made sure to confirm her suspicion. Yep, colored contacts. "I heard an insult there. Like you weren't good enough to be able to-"

Rachel cut her off with a hand to the shoulder. "Liz, it's okay. You don't have to do this for me."

"You have taken too much pain protecting me for me to simply stand idly while you are getting attacked in a way that I can stop." She gave Rachel a look. "Besides, you were singing a different tune the last time someone touched me."

"Yeah, well, the last time someone touched you, they were gonna kill you and had almost killed me. And that's a separate subject anyway." Rachel pointed out reasonably.

"I-"

Mrs. Robinson interrupted yet again. Rattled though she was, she was still the ultimate authority in the classroom. "If you are so sure that she knows what I will teach, then I will allow her to sleep if she can answer one advanced math question."

"Just one?" Lizzy asked skeptically.

"Yes, just one." The teacher said with a soft smile. "I'm not a heartless witch, no matter what my exes say."

Rachel nodded in acceptance and held out her hand. Mrs. Robinson was actually kinda famous for her single questions which were handed out from time to time. If you got chosen to answer it and could do so correctly before the end of class, then you were exempt from the day's homework, though it was still encouraged for extra credit and further understanding, and you might get an exceptional treat sometime in the near future. It goes for anyone, even other teachers and the principal, though there were consequences if the adults failed to answer correctly within 24 hours. Those varied from person to person, like the difference between when Mr. Patterson failed to answer right and got slapped in the face in front of the class with a dispassionate look on Mrs. Robinson's face to the time that that lech of a pedophile stalker pretending to be a teacher named Mr. Devrinson was pulled out to the front of an assembly and got some royal justice laid on his ass, ending with abused testicles, several bruises, and a broken rib or two before delivery to the police along with incriminating photos the man had taken and stored in his own home. Thankfully, the 'man' was still in prison, and not enjoying it.

Mrs. Robinson handed Rachel a paper with a single line of numbers and symbols on it. She squinted at it, made a moue with her mouth as she worked it out in her head, and ran it through her head again before handing it back with the answer on her tongue. "Three-fourths of Pi."

Mrs. Robinson looked down at the paper, a shocked expression on her face as she noticed the lack of pencil marks. "Um, how exactly did you do that Rachel?"

Rachel shrugged, not seeing the big deal. "I just did it in my head, like Lizzy showed me." She turned to move back to her seat before pausing, something being odd in her mind. She looked back at the equation in her hand, and was filled with surprised comprehension. She turned to Mrs. Robinson with an understanding 'glare' on her face. "That was an engineering question." She stated near-flatly before she smirked appreciatively at the woman. "Dirty cheat." She said softly with her smile plain to see, having enjoyed the way the woman had cheated, as she'd just figured out. She patted her teacher on the shoulder with a friendly "Thanks" and moved back to her seat, Lizzy following her. When she sat down, Lizzy sat in the empty seat directly in front of her and Rachel simply watched her, smiling. She didn't even realize it when her head fell off her palm and she fell asleep.

* * *

Lizzy smiled as she looked over at the sleeping girl behind her. For a moment, she imagined bubbles rising up from underneath her and lifting her to the sky.

As she always did, Rachel looked so peaceful a-slumbering. She'd grown out her lovely raven hair, which was now splayed all over her desk, hands and shoulders, framing that beautiful face. While their time together hadn't been the kindest time, and thus a hardness had begun to make an appearance, there was still enough softness to her face that her cheekbones weren't sharply defined as they sat high on her face. Her lips and eyes were unadorned with any makeup and her face, it looked so small.

Her snug maroon shirt covered her arms in a way that said that it hadn't been chosen with her musculature in mind, so it was one she'd owned before meeting her. Lizzy knew from past looks that Rachel's body was rather athletic. Maybe once it had been thin and stick-y, but time in a heavy full-body suit and carrying weapons of war all day long every day had toned that body, given it strength and a look to match. Her steady gait had an assurance that implied either power or danger with a smoothness she shared with predators like Tigers and Jaguars and Leopards and other jungle cats. And while she hadn't actually had a proper chance to look, she had a good guess that her pants hugged her in a similar way.

The class had gone smoothly and quietly. She hadn't been called on to answer any of the questions, so she'd been left in peace to watch over Rachel as she slept. She hadn't looked so in peace in a long time to her recollection. Admittedly that was a little spotty, but the girl looked happy and was actually in restful sleep. No nightmares, no worrying about her, just sleep.

A finger tapped her on the shoulder and she tensed for a moment while she looked over to the irritant. She relaxed a second before she saw another girl's face, remembering she didn't have to worry about the addicts before she noticed the other girl's face, and then the way she was dressed, held herself, and looked at her. Rich, a little detatched, but concerned about something, maybe angry. Definitely would've fit in with the elite. "Can I help you?" She asked casually.

"Yeah, what the hell is going on with you?" She asked angrily.

Lizzy blinked, confusion filling her face. "I'm, sorry? Um, what are you talking about?"

"That thing at the beginning of class. What the hell was that?" The girl hissed.

Lizzy's eyes narrowed a little. Anger and threatening. Wonder what that's about. "I missed her. It's been awhile since the last time we saw each other, so it's understandable why we would've hugged. Or so says her memory of having a good family. I never really got that chance."

"Then who the hell are you?"

Lizzy's eyes narrowed considerably at the hostility currently sent in her direction. What was this girl's problem? "I'm Lizzy, like I said earlier. Rachel kept me safe, and now it's my turn to return the favor." She said a little frostily. "Since I've answered that question, why not tell me who  _you_  are?"

"I am her  _friend_." If it weren't for the fact that they were whispering at each other, the other girl would be yelling right now. As it was, she was nearly at a normal speaking voice, so this needed to be cut short soon. "I have  _been_ her  _best_  friend since our days in  _kindergarten!_ "

"Then back the hell off!" Lizzy hissed back. "I'm trying to watch out for her, like I've tried to do for so long, and just because you have prior claim does  _not_  mean that you get to just attack me outright for hugging her in front of the class!" That seemed to surprise her and pull her down a peg, so Lizzy counted that a win and pressed on, less intense now that she knew she was getting through. "Besides, I want her to stay asleep. If she does not get at least an hour's sleep today then I will be  _pissed_  at whoever woke her up. Besides, you saw her. She was exhausted, dead on her feet even  _with_  the adrenaline caused by seeing me. If I hadn't  _told_  her to go to sleep,  _demanded_ it, she would've passed out, and that wouldn't get her nearly enough sleep. You get me?"

Still shocked, the girl nodded and Lizzy turned back to Rachel, dismissing the girl as a threat while making sure that Rachel was still asleep, giving out a sigh of relief when she saw the girl was still slumbering quietly.

Though, Lizzy couldn't really call her a girl. Not really. Not since the first time a splicer came after the two of them.

Then she sighed. "Look, I'm sorry. We're just getting off on the wrong foot. Neither of us are perfect, and it's kinda obvious just how territorial we both are when it comes to her, so let's just start over, shall we?" Lizzy asked the girl, her words and expression as she looked the rich girl in the eye offering an olive branch and a wish for peace between them. "My name is Elizabeth, though my Christian name is Anna Adelle DeWitt. I am the daughter of a rough, working class gumshoe who left me orphaned after he pissed off the wrong people. After that, I was noticed, and thus taken to one of those places, I believe it was called 'Frank Fontaine's Little Sister Orphanage'. The place took it's toll on me, though it was probably the worst on me and a kidnapped girl named Eleanor. I called her Ellie, and we were quick friends with each other and this boy named Amir. We three were the smartest people in the entire building with the strongest wills and the strongest intellects, ones that would've placed us up near the top if we hadn't been orphaned."

"Wait, she was kidnapped?" the girl asked, somewhat aghast.

Lizzy nodded, her short and slightly poofy dirty-blonde hair brushing against her forehead as she did so. "Yeah, though we were kinda young to properly understand it. Mostly because it was never actually explained to us, but that's another sore story for another day. Anyway, me and Ellie were taken away for a project and put through a series of lessons to brainwash us in isolation, just like many other girls from the orphanage, but we kept in contact as best we could. Then one day they took her and gave her a friend, a man in a powerful suit to protect her, and then the very next day I got one too, and we were cut off from each other. He died pretty quickly, and I never liked him anyway. I got a few more, who also died very quickly before one day, I was running away from danger, all on my own, when I was pulled into an alleyway and a woman's voice echoed in my ears, willing me to calm down and not make a sound. By that time I had broken most of the reconditioning, though her voice, after a few days, was all that I needed to break the last of it almost completely. Then, after the danger left, I wanted something. It wasn't a feeling I'd ever really had before, but I wanted to be safe, and I wanted that woman's arms to be my safety, and for that safety to be safe by keeping the woman who owned those arms safe, and in that moment, I awakened something inside of me. Something I have never understood." She looked down at the floor, saddened by her lack of ability to explain before looking back up, happier. "And you know what? Because of that wish and whatever it was inside me, I pulled us back in time to right after Ellie got her protector. Then it was like we'd never been separated. We spent the next 10 years together, happy times and not so much." She thought about saying more, but then decided that what she'd said was a little much anyway.

"That," the girl began, a little shocked. "Sounds like it came right out of a book."

Lizzy smiled sadly. She was saddened, but unfortunately not surprised. "Yeah I'm, I'm working on it. Great beginning for a book, isn't it?" She lied, unable to keep her dejection out of her tone. "Truth is that I was just a smart kid. I never knew my parents, and I grew up in the orphanage. I was bullied often and the other kids never liked me. Then one day, when things were at their lowest and someone, a mugger I think, was chasing me around, Rachel showed up and saved me. Even took a bullet for me, though it didn't hit anything serious. I knew it hadn't because I'd read a few medical books and examined it for her because I didn't want the hassle that the hospital staff extend to me given to her as well. All it really took was a few strips of gauze front and back because it went straight through. Then last week, Rachel went back to home, and since I'd found out where she went to school, I requested a transfer. The headmaster of my school nodded imperiously at me because he understood orphanage life and wanted me to be able to have as many friends as possible, especially since he knew I didn't have any friends at all that went to the school I went to. Ellie had already graduated and eloped with Amir, so I had no one. But I did have Rachel, who protected me. Kept me safe and taught me a few things I hadn't known before. I wanted her, not anyone else. So I asked, he said yes, and now I'm here."

"Hunh." the girl nodded thoughtfully at her lie. It was close enough to the truth anyway, so it's not like she'd really get caught out in it. "Well, I wish I could say there was an impressive story behind me, but I'm a simple girl. Sophie Stepanak, rich granddaughter of a great admiral, met Rachel Dodge, daughter of a great Navy submarine Captain, a few years before Kindergarten, and we've been friends ever since. I liked her, so I sat next to her and never got out of the habit. She's great when it comes to fashion, even if she claims she has zero interest in it whatsoever, and she always gives good advice."

Lizzy's smile turned more genuine. Yeah, that's the Rachel she knew, other than the Sophie part. "Well, maybe it's actually  _because_  she doesn't care about fashion that she's so good at it. She doesn't care, so she looks at the whole picture. See, she explained to me that her view on clothes, other than functional - period - is not 'what is everyone else wearing?' but 'what does this say about me? Does it say who and what I am? Or does it say I'm a useless skank or something like that?'"

"Hunh." Sophie paused in thought as she considered the other girl's words. "That, actually makes sense."

"Well, yeah!" Lizzy said in a tone that said it should've been obvious. "Just because you don't care doesn't mean you don't notice. She just doesn't want you looking like a streetwalker, that's all."

"I, I guess so." Sophie paused, looking down at the floor, obviously deep in thought. Lizzy turned back to watching the woman who had watched over her for so many years.

"Have you ever noticed just how big her hands were?" She suddenly asked Rachel's friend. She didn't know where the question came from, but it was out there now.

Caught off guard by the question, Sophie fumbled for a moment before she answered truthfully. "Um, no, actually."

"They're kinda big, aren't they?" Lizzy mentioned rhetorically in an amazed and speculatory tone. She wasn't entirely sure why, but the idea kinda amazed her.

"Yeah, they kinda are." Sophie agreed. They sat there in silence, watching their mutual friend, both attempting to watch over the protector who had taken care of both of them.

And the two were silent for the rest of the hour-long class, and 20 minutes after that.

* * *

Sophie Stepanak was confused. The girls next to her were the source of her problems today. So far, Rachel had been so thoroughly grumpy and confusing that she couldn't get a single thing out of her and when she wasn't grumpy or asleep, she was so totally focused on that other girl, Lizzy, or Anna, or whoever she is, that she didn't see anything else.

She had come here, to this particular college, for two reasons: She wanted to become a leader in the fashion industry. And she wanted to keep an eye on, and stay close to, her best friend.

Now, when most people looked at the two of them, they made a big assumption: that they were far too different to possibly be friends. They also tended to doubt that The U.S. Navy actually even had a presence in their lives. It did, they just never really showed it. Rachel, with her airy hippy-like attitude, was the daughter of a powerful strategic mind and a great Navy Submarine commander, or Skipper as the term goes. Sophie however, fashion-obsessed princess that she admitted she was, got that man's engineman for a father, a disresptectful muscle-builder who actually had quite a few good qualities. He just never really let up on the sarcasm, making it so that only those who could handle him could ever really see what a good man he was. While not obvious, she had inherited his charm (and occaisional lack thereof), as well as his wish to keep her body in good shape.

She'd also inherited his ability to truly treasure any friends she made, and wished to see them all in good health and happy. Only thing is, she didn't know what had changed, didn't know what now hurt her best friend. If she knew, then maybe she could deal with it, maybe she could help, or at least know what had changed so that she would know how to change her own actions and reactions.

Instead, she was being shut out, and she did not like it.

Mrs. Robinson had dismissed the class from attendance, which Sophie had spent most of watching Rachel and Lizzy. Rachel seemed almost completely different in those few moments that she was awake for, and Lizzy was a complete unknown. She needed to know more. To understand what it was that bonded these two together.

So, after Lizzy gently shook Rachel awake, she sidled up to her friend while they were walking through the hall and asked, "Can I talk to you privately?"

Rachel gave her an odd look before she nodded. "We gotta get Lizzy to class first."

"Nah, don't bother." The dirty-blonde in question said. "I'll be fine. I spent last night sneaking around the school, so I know where everything is. I'll be safe."

Rachel gave Lizzy an odd look now before shaking her head. "Fine. Just be careful, okay?"

Lizzy smirked. "Of course I will. You just stay safe yourself!" Then she ran off to the next class, Rachel watching her with worry, which only frustrated Sophie even more with such a public display that she knew absolutely nothing of. She pulled her friend into the nearest girl's room and made sure they were alone before she refocused. Though, it might not have been as empty as she thought it was because she'd been distracted by the feel of Rachel's arm. Sure, the girl was strong, but she'd never been  _that_  strongly muscled, had she?

"Rachel, who  _is_  that girl?" Sophie asked her best friend, perhaps her only  _true_  friend, as she looked her in the eye in the bathroom.

Rachel gave her a wry look. "Lemme guess, she sold you some bull story about how she grew up in an orphanage before getting chased down by a mugger and was rescued by me, her knight in shining armor, and the two of us rode off into the sunset to be here, where we could be happy." Her surprise must've been obvious as Rachel snorted and shook her head. "She's playing you. Hell, it was one of the only stories she could ever really keep straight." She muttered with an exasperated smile. "Well, while she's told me too many lies about what her story was before I showed up for me to really tell you what's true and what's not, I can tell you this much: One day, I was just walking along when I, fell. Felt like I was falling into a manhole, except that the nearest manhole was in the middle of an intersection a block away while I was on the sidewalk in the middle of the crowd. Then the next part was confusing, but I apparently pissed someone off at some point because I got something gross and  _live_  shoved down my throat before my body was roughly manhandled into some sort of diving suit, made of some sort of canvas, I think, and then I was left out on the street to die. I think I was shot at some point in the middle there, but I still can't make sense of exactly what happened."

Then Rachel continued her story, seemingly unaware of Sophie's horrified look. "I had no idea what was going on, so I just wandered for a bit until I heard a scream. A little girl, couldn't be more than 10 years old, shot around the corner, and I did the first thing that popped into my head. I grabbed her and pulled her into an abandoned shop right next to us, hunkering down with the struggling girl in my arms, hand over her mouth to keep her quiet as a man's voice called out for her, or I assumed he was calling out for her. I noticed some graffiti on the wall, and that messed with my addled mind enough to try another stab at poetry. I'm still not entirely sure of what I said, but it worked and calmed her down enough that she didn't struggle or make a sound. A little while later, as I continued to hold her, there was a blinding flash and when I had my vision back, everything was shiny and new. The shop owner shoo-ed us out as he opened up the shop and I found a newspaper, which was fresh off the presses and said it was years before the old newspaper that I'd noticed out of the corner of my eye when the shop was dingy. Somehow, the two of us had traveled back in time. That was..."

She put on a look of concentration for a moment as Sophie just gaped at the woman before her before Rachel brought her right hand up to massage at her face while still thinking. "Damn. Can't figure out how long ago that was. I need to start paying more attention. But I know it was years ago. After that, about a week or two ago, Lizzy showed me how that flash of light worked and brought me back to here. I ended up back home and didn't leave the apartment for the rest of the week. Then school came and you know the rest so far." She gave a huge yawn, showing off her teeth that seemed a lot sharper than they used to be. Sophie shivered at the sight. Rachel never did get into the habit of covering her mouth when she yawned, but it had never really seemed menacing to Sophie, not like this. Usually, it just seemed innocent. Rachel shook her head. "Man, I didn't know I was so  _tired_."

"Then we should get you home to sleep." The words that came out of her mouth surprised both of them, but Sophie was surprised even more by the realization that she meant them and would stand by them. Her best friend was dead on her feet and it was obvious to anyone who paid the slightest bit of attention that she needed to sleep, maybe for an entire week without waking.

Rachel gave her a searching look before smiling tiredly. "Yeah, maybe I will. But only if you promise me that you and Lizzy will still be there when I wake up, ya hear?"

Sophie's brows furrowed at that. "I, I don't-" she began in confusion. She really didn't want to promise to something she didn't know about, especially because she knew so very little about the woman they were talking about.

Rachel interrupted her with a concerned look and a strong hand on her shoulder. "Promise me." She said intently.

Under that look, what else  _could_  she do? Sophie swallowed her pride and nodded. "I promise."

Rachel gave her a nod and a relieved and tired smile. "Good. Now let's get going. I wanna grab Lizzy before we head on to my apartment."

"Alright." Sophie agreed.

And they left for their target without another word.

That didn't mean that she simply stopped caring. All the way there, she shot her friend worried looks, and she kept on yawning the entire way there and-

Did she forget a bra this morning?! And given how tight her pants are, did she forget to put on anything there, or is she wearing a thong?

Sophie slapped herself, gaining a curious look from Rachel that went unexplained. She didn't need to be thinking such thoughts right now!

A soft thud distracted her and she looked over to see Rachel resting against the wall, yawning, struggling to stay on her feet. She scrubbed at her face, trying to get herself awake again. Sophie figured the thud had been Rachel bumping into the wall because she was tired, so she pulled her friend along towards their destination, which was wherever Lizzy was. She didn't want to break her promise, period.

The thought before that last one gave her pause for a second as she realized she didn't actually know where the other woman was. Then Rachel started pulling her forwards in what she assumed was the correct direction, so that problem was solved. Sophie gave her friend a quick and worried once-over of her general state and said, "You know, if I didn't know better I'd say you were pretty wasted."

Rachel snorted rather indelicately at that. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm just tired." They stopped moving. "She oughtta be in here, so if you, don-" Rachel slowed down in her speech to yawn, which didn't actually end with closing her jaw so much as falling face first on the floor, despite having first leaned backwards to a very alarming degree.

For a moment, Sophie just stood there and looked at her friend in astonishment. She knew the woman had been tired, but not  _this_  tired. Then she shook her head and got back into the game of life. She stuck her head into the class, completely disregarding whatever was going on in there, and shouted for Lizzy.

When the dirty blonde turned to see what the matter was, she said, "I need you to help me get Rachel home. She passed out on me."

"Alright." Lizzy said as she began to pack up. While she did so, Sophie went back to where she'd left Rachel and began to lift her. Well, actually,  _try_  to lift her. She was  _much_  too heavy for her. Then Lizzy showed up and together, they found they could lift her up by her shoulders enough to drag the girl out to Sophie's car (neither Sophie nor Rachel had ever really cared about the unconscious woman's car, but Sophie's was expensive. She didn't want to leave it behind), drape the large girl across the back seats of the SUV, and start heading to Rachel's apartment. This time, instead of dragging her, especially because there are a number of people who actually care about Rachel, and because she was way too heavy and big for either of them to bring in with a fireman's carry, Lizzy got Rachel by the armpits, at her insistence, and Rachel got her by the legs. Lizzy swayed tiredly a few times along the way, complimenting the yawns she'd pulled (as silently as possible, but still noticed by Sophie) during the car ride, which made Sophie even more glad that Rachel lived on the first floor, especially because she was starting to feel a little dizzy and unfocused, like she could use a little sleep herself.

After putting Rachel on her bed and slipping on a sports bra left behind on the floor, which is a little odd for the woman she knew, Sophie allowed Lizzy to stay with Rachel, as they were both too tired to really argue, and she ended up on the couch.


	2. Tales and Tacos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taco Bell and exposition. Also, Nap Attack!

Sophie woke up to an unfamiliar sound, and for a moment, she didn't know where she was. A part of her wanted to panic, but then she began to remember where she was and how she got there.

She was in her best friend's apartment. Around the middle of the day, after what was apparently a friend of her friend's showed up, she'd confronted the dirty blonde about her "sudden" appearance into Rachel's life and she learned the strangest tale she'd ever heard. She still wasn't sure that she believed it, but the way they'd each said the exact same tale with different words said that it wasn't rehearsed, and the look in their eyes said they actually believed what they said.

Rachel never believed her when she said that she saw something in a person's eyes. Said it was always something about their face, the way it tightens or loosens to make the various expressions rather than some change in the actual eye itself, but she saw something there. And when she saw them remember, there was a haunted look to them as they spoke, a pain in their eyes that was all too real for her.

The light in the apartment told her that it was probably early and her back told her she was lying on an unfamiliar couch and it took her a moment or two to remember that she'd brought Rachel home, as well as her friend Lizzy. As she remembered more of the day before, she decided she still wasn't sure about how true their story about how Rachel and Lizzy met was, though the fact that Rachel had never lied to her, and the fact that she'd pointed out that the story Lizzy had told her after her own disbelief (though, without details as if this sort of thing happened all the time, giving further credence to their story) was a complete and utter fake before backing up the earlier story from her own perspective made her really question whether it was truly true or not. Yeah, she didn't really believe it, didn't want to believe it, but they both at least appeared to believe it, and Rachel had never lied to her. Well, once or twice when they were younger about sensitive topics, and a few times when they were just joking around, but nothing even slightly close to as serious as they were making this out to be.

But then there was the oddness of Lizzy. That generalized thought brought up how odd Rachel had been the entire past week and with it all together, the idea made Sophie sigh deeply as she plunged into depression. Something had changed Rachel, that much was certain.

Back when they were growing up, Rachel was such a nice, air-headed girl that she couldn't possibly do anything but love her and love on her. She'd bought the other girl lots of little things, bars of candy, bottles of soda, the occasional thing that she really, really wanted (though that sometimes involved begging her parents to buy it for her so that she could give it to Rachel). When they got older, and she got a credit card all her own, and the two began to exercise together and often with her father, that had expanded to some video games, art supplies and the occasional meal from a fast-food place or a good diner (they'd found a lot of good places that way, though they did sometimes find places to warn others away from, whether bad or simply mediocre) and Rachel had slowly become less air-headed and more simply airy. And then came high school where they both started working at the same time to start getting money all their own and Rachel had confessed (well, blurted really. While she may act completely aloof at times, or really usually, she's really self-conscious and more than a bit of a worrier. She'd been afraid that Sophie would reject her, which in general is not an uncommon or unfounded fear, but one that was ultimately pointless - in this case at least - because Sophie hadn't been raised to be so judgmental, among other things) one day that she had figured out that she was actually bisexual, but leaning more towards girls.

After a second of thought, she had done what she felt was the correct course of action to help her worried friend: be encouraging, supportive, and tease the heck out of her best friend! After a day or two, of course, to keep from being mean about it. So, she'd replied with a simple and happy, "Alrighty. Just don't start flirting with me unless you tell me beforehand." Which had set her friend at ease so much that they hadn't stopped smiling about their solidified place in each others' lives until calculus. High-level algebra had been one thing, calculus was something so completely different that her mind hurt just thinking about it, and she was really lucky to have Rachel, who just instinctively knew just about everything about math once it was explained to her. So Rachel finished her homework in class and then taught her after school and life worked out well, especially when she ended up teaching Rachel about biology. I mean, come on, it's easy! Just remember that this is called that and they live here or there. And yet, Rachel's impressive memory failed her every time, and it was actually an honest thing, she wasn't purposefully forgetting just to be able to spend time with her, and that thought still put a smile on her face.

And then the smile faded as Sophie remembered how Rachel had acted the past week.

College was fun. It was like a better version of high school sometimes. Way harder at times, but also more fun at times. For her, it wasn't the stereotypical movie college experience, here she was learning to be a career fashionista, and it was so much fun! Rachel wanted to be an artist, and they got lucky in that their college offered both degree programs. Rachel was going for a minor in math, just for fun and so that she'd have something marginally useful, and they still held their previous jobs. But two weeks ago, they'd been given a break by the school. Spring break, which came at the same time as last year, and was just as cold then too. She'd agreed with Rachel to go look for someone to date for awhile, on the condition that Rachel did the same. 5 days away from each other to search and begin, and after that they'd keep each other apprised of how it went.

When those five days were up, she came over and visited, anxious to see what progress her friend had made. Rachel was happy, but shook her head when asked about prospects. Sophie had smiled and said that that was okay, as she hadn't actually found anyone either. They spent the rest of the day just hanging out in relative silence. They didn't have much to talk about that day, and just spent time in each others' presence, Rachel drawing something amazing-looking (though Sophie hadn't a clue what it was) while Sophie looked through a fashion magazine. Then they went to their jobs, Sophie at a lingerie shop (where she occasionally bought something in leather, because that stuff felt  _good_ ) while Rachel went to the docks for her shift, afternoon till midnight.

Rachel's job of choice had surprised Sophie at the time she found out about it, but in hindsight probably shouldn't have. She was a stevedore, just another dock hand that helped the various ships unload cargo. For some reason, even in college selling underwear was still fun for Sophie, and Rachel said the harsh labor left her with a good feeling, a happy exhaustion at the end of the day.

But then the next day when she came over to visit, while Rachel's smile was bright, her eyes were dark, moody, and tired. Something happened to her, and Sophie didn't know what it was. And she knew that such a thing, if it's powerful enough, could change a person completely. The thought disturbed and scared her, that the woman she'd known her entire life could have been wiped out in a sense, could be destroyed and replaced without physically damaging the body that housed her.

Shit, she was getting metaphysical. She must really be tired, and very, very worried.

Today had been the first day back from break. As much of an effort Rachel put into acting normal, Sophie had seen right through it, and tried to give her friend the space to overcome it. She knew that just a week was not nearly enough to deal with whatever it was that had hurt her, but it had been enough to get her back into working shape, enough that most of their friends and teachers at school wouldn't notice.

But in that first day especially, and all the other times before class she'd checked on her best friend, she'd seen a look in her friend's eyes that reminded her of several of her father's friends. Mostly military men who'd gone through the Army's boot camp and then been thrust onto the battlefield. They had come back from that with scars she never saw with her eyes, except in theirs. To see them remember, to see those, often expressive, friendly eyes grow hard and pained always hurt her deeply. Part of the reason she'd begged Rachel not to go through even Reserve Officers' Training Corps to get the money for college, even though she already had a good job going for her, when she'd expressed her lack of personal opposition to the idea. Sophie hadn't wanted her friend to be put into such a position that could cause such pain.

And yet, she'd been there anyway. And there was nothing Sophie could do about it.

There was a knocking at the front door and Sophie jerked up straight. Who would be knocking on Rachel's door?

Before she could do much more than blink at the thought of someone knocking at her best friend's door, and the follow-up surprise thought that anyone other than her might knock on Rachel's door was unlikely, Lizzy had breezed in and opened the door in a rush, an oddly flustered look on her face. She opened it and asked, "Who is it?" Then she saw who it was, and her entire body language shifted, darkness chasing away the frenetic mood she'd had before. "Oh, it's you." Then it shifted again as a thought struck her. "You're a doctor! You can help!" And then proceeded to drag whoever it was off to (presumably) Rachel's room as Sophie was getting up. She didn't manage to see who it was, as she'd been standing up while Lizzy took off, so she sleepily shuffled over to Rachel's Room.

The scene before her (which was preceded by a shout of "Fix her!") was not quite what she expected to see when she got there.

Lizzy was gesturing in Rachel's general direction, who happened to be on the room's three seat hide-a-bed couch (for some reason, Rachel sometimes found it easier to create art with something solid against her, like the back of a couch or her own self reading next to her best friend), sleeping soundly, while the person she assumed to have been at the front door, a woman who appeared to be middle-aged, like late 30's, with brown hair and a severe, though tired and exhausted expression, stood next to her, on the opposite side of Rachel from Lizzy. She wore a simple outfit, brown jacket over white dress shirt and an ankle-length brown, slightly plaid skirt. When she spoke, she had a solid German, maybe Austrian, accent that didn't obscure her solid grasp on English but did flavor it quite a bit. "And what, precisely, am I supposed to be fixing? I am not a doctor."

"You  _are_  a doctor, Mama Tenenbaum." Lizzy said, a plaintive note appearing in her determined voice. "Just the kind of doctor I need right now. She won't wake up!"

Wait, what? "Mama" Tenenbaum? Wasn't her last name Silvesterson? Like Spots?

"And why is it that you assume that I can help you?"

"Because she's a Protector!" She said with finality, as if that made all the sense in the world.

Maybe to them, it did. And that was apparently all this Tenenbaum woman needed, as comprehension dawned on her face and she began her examination.

Sophie just watched impassively - 'Well, passively,' her sluggish mind corrected. 'Impassive means not passive, which means active... sort of' - as the woman's face became less severe and annoyed, less like an overtired mother dealing with a demanding child, and more like a person with a curious mind provided with a challenge. She was still annoyed, but she bent down to examine Rachel anyway. After a few moments of going through the basic checklist every doctor she's ever met go through, checking pupil dilation, pulse rate, and relative temperature, she straightened and said, "She is just asleep."

"Then why won't she wake up?" Lizzy asked impatiently.

"How long has it been since her Little One has been away from her?"

Lizzy had an annoyed look on her face and opened her mouth to speak. Then she paused, eyes narrowed a little in worried thought as her lips settled into a small frown. "I, I don' know. A week, maybe?"

"That would be enough." "Mama Tenenbaum" said, whatever adrenaline that had been there draining as she became tired once more, though satisfaction did show on her face at having found the proper conclusion. "She has fallen into a coma. A little bit of ADAM should wake her, though," She paused, regret coming over her face. "I do not have any of my reserves on my person, having neutralized them years ago." She gave a rueful smile. "I thought it best, considering ADAM's effects, and my personal grievance with the substance and what it can do."

"Well, that's okay." Lizzy said, relief coming over her face with a sunny smile. "I'm her Little One. That means that I have ADAM. Especially ADAM tuned to  _us_." From somewhere behind her on Lizzy's person, she produced a gigantic needle filled with an oddly glowing red substance that really should have surprised Sophie a whole lot more, just as her stabbing Rachel in the heart should have surprised her more. A little bit of the red substance was injected into Rachel, and a moment after the needle was pulled back, Rachel's breathing changed. A moment later, a yawn was produced and the other woman stirred, a smile coming over her face as she began to wake up. Some days she woke up instantly, while others she took some time to warm up and get moving. Sophie knew this from their numerous sleepovers, and other times of being neighbors when she'd had to come over and physically pull her out of bed. Today seemed to be one of the latter days, where Rachel would need a little time to wake up, but she would be waking up soon. Since whatever crisis was happening seemed to be over, why not ask what's going on?

"So, anybody wanna explain what's going on?" Sophie asked drily.

They went from their relatively relaxed positions to stock straight at the sound of her voice. Lizzy suddenly looked guilty, like a kid with her hand caught in the cookie jar, while the Tenenbaum woman simply looked mildly surprised. She got the feeling that she wasn't only "mildly" surprised, but that she'd had a good deal of self-training in keeping a straight face.

Made her wonder what the woman had been through.

Lizzy was the first to react. "Oh, uh, Sophie. What are you doing up so early?"

Sophie gave a deadpan look to hide her further confusion. "Early? Isn't it, like, 6 PM?"

"Actually, it is six in the  _morning_ , friend." Tenenbaum said faux-casually.

Sophie blinked. "Wait, what?" She shook her head, willing herself to not be distracted. " _What_  is going on? Who is she?" She asked, pointing at Tenenbaum.

"Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum." Lizzy said succinctly. "Highly gifted geneticist with a brilliant mind for puzzles and experimentation, who wanted to find out how DNA worked. She's here to fix Rachel." She finished just as professionally short as she'd started.

"You didn't tell me what's going on." Sophie pointed out angrily. "And what's up with the whole 'Mama Tenenbaum' thing anyway?" Sophie asked, really starting to wake up now.

"Because," Rachel said, obviously still very much asleep, but conscious as shown by her moving her legs to sit up and prepare to stand, eyes still closed. "Doc Tenenbaum is the one who created the Little Sisters in the first place." She started to stand, but then crumpled onto her face with a thud as her still unawake limbs refused to hold the weight of her body. "Ow." She said deadpan into the carpet.

Now, the thought occurred to Sophie that she could probably learn more about whatever was going on by asking Rachel directly, but by the time that thought actually happened across her brain, she was already shaking her head and moving Rachel back onto the couch and sitting next to her, whereupon Lizzy sat on the other side. The next thing she registered was Rachel gently shrugging her off so that she could get a better look at Tenenbaum.

Which, given her blearily tired state, took awhile, both to get Sophie to stop hovering in a touching way and to get a proper look at the haggard older woman. But once she managed it, she sucked in a near-silent gasp and looked very much awake and sympathetic.

"Jeez, Brigid, what hell'd you go through?" She asked tiredly.

"Rapture." She said succinctly, a slight smile tugging at her mouth as if she'd mentioned an inside joke. "The Germans were much better hosts than the Splicers ever were." A tired smile appeared on her face, small but there. "At least I made up for my sins slightly, as I rescued Doctor Porter before Minerva's Den's destruction."

Rachel smiled back at her. "Good on ya then."

Sophie looked at her best friend with a very confused and lost look on her face. "Who-?"

"Doctor Charles Milton Porter, PhD." Rachel said in return, looking her friend in the eye. "He was an electrical genius who actually managed to design a living, working, almost breathing AI using 1950's technologies, plus a little extra. However brilliant the man was, he also had an unbuyable conscience and thus occasionally pissed off the people around him for being so unwilling to sell out one way or another. Mostly just his coworkers, like Reed Wahl, who happened to be his partner, and a devil of a psychologist named Sofia Lamb." She gave a slight shudder at the mention of the woman's name. "Never liked the woman, she was spiteful and thoroughly manipulative. Even managed to create a cult based upon her daughter, who was unwilling to fill the post the woman had created for her." A dark and dangerous look appeared in Rachel's eyes for a moment before she shook her head, casting such thoughts far away.

"How'd you know that?" Sophie asked. There was something in Brigid's eyes that told her that she didn't expect Rachel to know that.

Rachel shrugged. "I knew the guy. And his cat Turing, and his project, The Thinker. And, to a certain, distant point, his partner. Reed wasn't a happy guy, he was greedy and jealous." She stretched her arms straight up until a "pop" sound came from her back and she let her arms drop to her side limply with a sigh. Then she shook her head tiredly, trying to wake herself up as she wiped at her eyes. "Man, I still..." She said as she tried fighting off a yawn, though she gave in in the end.

Brigid came over and steadied Rachel's woozy head before pulling out a penlight and shining it in and out of her eyes for a few seconds. She hummed, and then declared her prognosis.

"You have a severe case of fatigue." She said with an authoritative nod.

What?

Rachel apparently echoed her sentiments as she asked with a rather confused look on her face, "Um, how, exactly, does that equate to 'near-coma state'?"

"Because you have completely run out of EVE. You have been operating off of nothing but fumes, and that has contributed to how close you are to succumbing to your coma." Brigid said, sympathy creeping into her voice.

Sophie looked at the 'doctor' with a look of utter confusion. What did she just say?

"Well if that's all!" Rachel said, suddenly looking very relieved. "I should just go take a swim." She finished with a smile. "So! What's for breakfast?"

Now Sophie was looking at Rachel like she'd grown a second head. She couldn't help it, she just didn't know what the hell they were saying!

"I'll go get some Taco Bell." Lizzie announced as she stood up. Then she pointed at Rachel with a severe expression. "But  _you_  get to clean up my mess."

Rachel looked surprised at that. "But it's your mess."

"Made around  _your_  friend." She pointed out reasonably. "I don't know her well enough to clean it up properly."

Rachel shot her a dirty look. "You make too much sense sometimes, you know that?"

Lizzie smiled back brightly in an "I know" kind of expression before she bounced out, and Sophie heard the door open and shut. Then she turned to Rachel who was currently shaking her head.

* * *

'One of these days.' Rachel swore vaguely to herself. 'One of these days, I'm gonna get my revenge on that girl properly!' She thought about nodding in affirmation of her oath, but then decided against it. Part of it was that she had a good friend she hadn't seen in a long, long while to see too, and any questions she might have as well.

And after what Lizzy just pulled, knowing full well that Sophie was likely listening to most of it, there would be a lot of questions.

She turned to her friend and paused for a moment, just drinking in the sight of her one friend that she'd always had for as long as she could remember.

"What?" Sophie asked agitatedly, obviously unnerved by her lack of talking.

"I'm sorry, it's just..." She paused, hesitated, then plunged forward. "It's just been so long. I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but I haven't seen you in ten years." She tried to hold herself back, but gave up and lunged to grab her friend in a very close hug, and succeeded. She didn't care that the world was swirling like a whirlpool right now, or that she might crush the other woman, she just cared that her friend, sometimes only confidant, was here in her arms once more, after so very long.

She took in a slow, shaky breath, and let it out slowly as she buried her face in the other woman's neck, breathing in her scent and glorying in her softness. "I missed you Sophie. So much." She breathed out. A part of her mind said that she was probably close to tears. The rest of her said "go to hell, this is Sophie. She deserves our tears. She is ours and nobody else's!"

The next thing she knew, she was blinking water out of her eyes, listening to drips hitting wooden floor. She looked up and saw Sophie's relieved face and gave an inquisitive one of her own.

"You fell asleep after you grabbed me." Was Sophie's response.

Her eyebrows shot straight up. "I had a  _nap attack?_ " She asked incredulously.

"It would appear so." Tenenbaum's amused voice came from her left.

Face burning hot enough to light her on fire (though part of her wished she  _was_  on fire, easier to deal with), she buried her face in Sophie's neck and shirt for a moment longer, breathing it in before she eased up on her grip and slowly let go, leaning back to allow the other woman her own freedom.

That's when she noticed that Sophie was glaring at her (not very powerfully, but still), and her shirt was soaked. As was her hair.

Then it hit her that she was soaked, and what probably happened to cause that, and her smile turned really sheepish. "Sorry Soph. I just," She paused, trying to find the right words.

Sophie cut her off with a hesitant smile and patted her on the shoulder. "It's alright."

"Your choice in weapons seems to have been fortuitous, Little One." Doc Tenenbaum said, the way she spoke confirming in her mind that the 'good doctor' knew that Lizzie had been a Little Sister, while praising her for some as yet unknown reason. "Seeing how much color has returned to her face, I'd say that some of her EVE has returned, enough to survive her the entire day, at least, but the food you've brought back should help as well."

Rachel noticed as Sophie's face went edged and a little angry at her own confusion. "You said that earlier, and again just now." She noted out. "Just what, exactly, is EVE?"

"You remember that horror story back in High School about that middle schooler who nearly killed himself on a few energy drinks?" Rachel asked. She knew Sophie would know the one. There weren't that many stories about energy drinks, and this one she'd heard from Sophie.

A look of concentration came onto Sophie's face as she tried to remember. Hesitantly, she nodded. "Yeah, he was a friend of one of my friends. A full can of Monster and a half can of Spike before classes, the first class of the day had a five minute run at the beginning, and when he emulated a few nearby girls and got the teacher to check how his heart was beating, you could see it practically leaping out of his chest faster than a Leopard's land speed, and sent him to the nurse's office. End of class, he was still there, so he went to his next class. It also had a five minute run, but this one he ran for awhile, then crashed in the middle. Practically gave himself a heart attack from the crash, and I think he was sent to a hospital."

Rachel nodded. That's the one. "Now imagine a drug that could give that same energy, but safely, and over the entire day rather than in an hour-long burst. That's EVE. It allows for stronger and more efficient mental structure-" She cut herself off. Took a breath, and started over. "Okay, let's be honest here, I don't know enough about it to continue there, other than 'it works'." She looked Sophie in the eye. "Here's the basic gist of it, in proper Layman's Terms:

"EVE is a superdrug. Steroids are a very mild version of a superdrug, because they help encourage strength, but not directly. They are artificial hormones, Testosterone in particular. The more testosterone you have, the more muscle you can easily produce and use. They don't actively increase your strength, but they do help build muscle size and density, which  _does_  increase strength and durability."

"Yeah, we know that from Health Ed in Middle School." Sophie mentioned, nodding, though obviously confused as to where exactly this was going.

"Well, a powerful superdrug version of a powerful steroid, one that can do things for muscles the way EVE can for mental alacrity and activity, would do that instantly. As in, you take it, and you can feel and watch as your muscles grow big and hard in minutes or even seconds."

Sophie's eyes went wide. Rachel casually leaned over and eased her mouth shut with a near-inaudible click from her teeth coming together. Then she thought about it for a second, before deciding, and then opening it back up, letting it stay slack, and then shoving one end of a quesarito into her friend's mouth before picking up a smaller chicken quesadilla for herself.

Sophie jerked back, startled at having the burrito/quesadilla shoved into her mouth unexpectedly before giving her friend a dirty look and grabbing it before she began to chew.

"You see Sophie," Lizzie began, and Rachel smiled. She knew that when Lizzie explained, it was always either highly thought out and scientific, or entertaining. Often both. "EVE was made in a place where Superscience, as Rachel called it, ran rampant. It may have been 1959 to them, but they still had automated doors in an underwater city where the only rule of measure was how much you could make with your own two hands. Given how happy energy drinks made people here, it was only logical that someone would come up with something to make waking up to coffee easier and more efficient." Lizzie said, very much acting the part of the disinterested scientist like Tenenbaum was once or those strange Lutece people were. Simple, efficient, and as if what you were saying had absolutely no affect on the local reality. She took a bite of her own burrito before setting it down and then specifically waiting until Rachel took a bite of the Quesorito she'd provided for her protector. Then Lizzie grabbed her shoulder, and then slammed a hand into the middle of Rachel's back, creating a near-horrifying grating/popping sound coming from the bigger woman's back as her chest popped out, and Sophie's eyes tried to follow.

Lizzie was then given a slightly dirty (but mostly hurt-ish) look by Rachel as she swallowed and said, "Lizzie! Not while I'm eating, remember?"

"Yeah, well, you know you don't like it when your back locks up, and how easy it is for that to happen when I do not do that often enough."

"And did we ever figure out when 'often enough' actually is?" Rachel asked, mouth full of food.

Lizzie pretended to think about it before sunnily shaking her head and saying, "No, I just like the sound."

Rachel gave a low, food-filled grumble that sounded suspiciously like "bitch" before tearing back into her food.

"One of the odder things about EVE is that it can be generated by our bodies." Lizzie continued. "I mean, yeah, 'most everything in Rapture had it somewhere in the chemical makeup once it was discovered, which added an odd taste to it, but after awhile, once we'd had enough of it, we started generating it while being like normal people and simply collecting calories from the food and drink to use. It even happened when food brought in from outside of Rapture was eaten, so it's quite a thing. Heck, it even happens when we smoke!"

"Actually," Rachel pointed out around a mouthful. "I think the smoking EVE was a completely different process."

Lizzie paused, pulled a large sip of caffeinated soda from her cup, swallowed as she made a thoughtful face, and nodded. "Yeah, probably." She then munched a large chunk out of her burrito.

For a moment, there was silence as everyone, including a bemused doctor Tenenbaum, munched on their brunches.

Then Sophie spoke up. "Okay, I get most of what you said." She began. "Well, sorta. But, what I don't get is how a bucket of water would be fortuitous?"

"Oh!" Lizzie exclaimed before swallowing the food in her mostly-full mouth. "See, EVE was made with a whole bunch of other 'superdrugs', some marketed as active weaponry, called 'Plasmids', while others were more passive in nature, like the ability to move faster or have a sport-y physique or be smarter, and those were called 'Tonics', and Mama Tenenbaum assumed, and correctly I might add, that Rachel has one of the rarer tonics in her system. It's called 'The Fountain of Youth', and what it does is, whenever you're in water, be it rain, or under a leak, or just soaking in the tub or a puddle on the ground, you're generating EVE. If you're underwater, that means you basically have an unlimited supply of EVE, which can then be used to activate a Plasmid with little regard to conserving EVE for later use or to battle fatigue." She said sunnily, smiling as if she were a ray of sunshine suddenly broke through the grotto to Rapture. "And that is just absolutely  _super_  useful, especially down in Rapture after it started leaking."

Sophie nodded for a bit, then the motion caught a little, as if she'd thought of something. "Wait, Rapture?"

Rachel nodded. "Yeah, that's the name of the underwater city. Supposedly made after world war two, but there was never a mass disappearance of scientists in our history, so I think it's safe to say it happened in a different timeline or universe-thingy." She added parenthetically. "Also, you never want to go there. Too 'laissez faire' for ya, and the later years are zombie-level insanity."

"Okay, I know we learned that in U.S. History, sort of, but what does that term mean again?" Sophie asked, looking only somewhat more informed than she was some minutes before.

"'Laissez Faire' is french for 'Free Market'." Rachel started simply. "In business, that is essentially the law of the jungle, the strongest get stronger, and the weak don't get any help, and there wasn't much in the way of market regulation, and monopolies on individual lines of business were common back in the gilded age. Now, while being self-sufficient is not illegal, buying out everyone else and making it impossible for anyone else to sell what you're selling  _is_  illegal, in this day and age at least. Back in Rapture, however, there was  _zero_  governmental regulation, of  _any_  sort. Which means, as long as you didn't go beyond the basic rules of cordiality, you basically had free reign within what your money allowed."

"It also means that stuff established after world war 2, like human experimentation, with or without informed consent, was also a perfectly legal business practice down there." Lizzie chipped in before wolfing down a huge bite from a taco.

"If it worked, it was used." Rachel finished the thought before eating an entire quarter of her "fake taco/pizza" (which was actually small enough that she could do that, and was surprisingly tasty). Then she paused and savored the bite while they allowed Sophie to absorb and reconcile all the information they'd just thrown at her. Then she looked over at Lizzie and asked (after swallowing), "How'd you even pay for all this?"

Lizzie took a moment to swallow before saying, "Oh, I just stole your credit card and ordered most of the stuff on the menu."

Rachel snorted and smiled as she playfully hit the younger and smaller woman on the shoulder. "Scamp." she said affectionately, remembering the fact that things had never really gone in a way that would allow Lizzie to have a wallet of her own without serious questions until well after the two had met, so she'd always had their money in her wallet and other hiding places, and was usually the money person of the pair even after she'd gotten Lizzie her own wallet and camel purse, much to their shared amusement, and she had explained the concept of credit cards to Lizzie (as well as the drain that her best friend had put on them, which was as much a reason to have a job as 'most anything else she had). And so they resumed to contented silence.

After a few more moments and bites, Sophie spoke up again. "So how does Miss Tenenbaum fit into all this? And what does she do?"

"Okay, quick background." Rachel said around a burrito bite, before thumping her chest to try and clear any blockages before swallowing. "Now, this is mostly my assumptions based off of what I've heard, but she survived Nazi Germany by being a worse monster than the monsters who cowered behind Hitler, like Tuskeegee and Mengele, and that's a big part of what got her noticed in Rapture. Eventually, she got contracted by a real Bronx Sewer Rat by the name of Frank Fontaine. She worked for him awhile, and then she saw a guy at the docks playing catch when she knew he'd had his hands crippled sometime world war 2. That gave her ideas, and one things led to another. Human experimentation followed after all that science on the slugs themselves, which were shown to secrete a substance they later called "ADAM". See, ADAM was the basis for the biggest stuff  _everywhere_  in Rapture, and I do mean  _everything_ , as it influenced every single part of the place after it's discovery and distribution. In the human body, it created stem cells, you know those basic building blocks of cells everywhere in our body because a muscle cell is just a muscle cell, but a stem cell can become any cell at all. And those ADAM-created stems tended to replace damaged tissues, thus creating a healing effect, like on the guy I mentioned a little bit ago. In the lab at the beginning stages, it gave rise to EVE, which was quickly incorporated into pretty much everything edible or used in the digestive tracts, or just injected straight. In other experiments, it showed ability to influence machines, though I am still unaware of the process there, as it's a liquid, and those don't tend to mess with data directly. That's how The Thinker came to be, by the way." Rachel mentioned parenthetically.

"But the real stuff that ADAM inspired was Genetic Manipulation." Lizzie said, a serious look coming onto her face.

"How does that have anything to do with Tenenbaum?" Sophie asked, looking very confused.

"I believe they are getting to that." Brigid said, tired face looking amused.

"And why aren't  _you_  telling the story?" Sophie rounded on the scientist.

"Because I am amused at their way of telling the story." She said simply. "And it is not exactly a tale I like to repeat."

"And part of that is because her specialty in the Death Camps was to try and figure out the mysteries of Human Genetic Code, so technically she has a PhD in the subject." Lizzie added in. "And the less said about those the better. I may have a screwed up mind from the Little Sister Orphanage, but I am still intelligent enough that my brain can come up with those images on its own without help."

Sophie made a face, and then paled. Rachel nodded. "Yeah,  _just_  as bad as Tuskeegee and Mengele, or whatever sci-fi mad scientist you can think of, but in real life. However, that is not what we're going to talk about. See, in the Camps, Tenenbaum thought the scientists there were basically mindless brutes, similar to how a proper, mind-expanded scientist might think of a guy who specializes so completely in plastic surgery and the related sciences to the point of complete exclusion of everything else to be completely plebian." She grimaced at her word choice, then decided there was no helping it without a better word supplied by her resident dictionary (Lizzie). "Or something like that. See, the guys there were only focused on Aryan features. So, blond hair and blue eyes with a side-order of specific shapes and facial features, along with flawless pale skin. But Tenenbaum had the right idea, especially in that she focused on the bigger, more important picture, from a genetic standpoint at least." Rachel straightened. "Now, we here in the twenty-first century know that this is basically a bunch of hocus-pocus, but she wanted to see if there were genetic markers to differentiate whether a person is born strong or weak, smart or stupid, that kind of thing. She researched it pretty extensively, and I neither want, nor need, to know her findings or how she found them. But that work got her noticed."

As Rachel picked up a taco for a big bite, Lizzie took up the narrative. "When she got to Rapture, Life and Science both happened. Due to her being about as heartless as the rest of the people picked up for Rapture Sciences, she got along relatively fine, and found work relatively quickly. A while after that, she found out about a slug that can help heal."

Rachel swallowed and added in her two cents worth on that subject. "It was a guy, a dockhand she knew had crippled hands from the war, and he was happily playing catch with his buddies, even though it should've been impossible."

"So she asked him if he still had the slug, which he did, asked him if she could have it, which he agreed to, and she began to study it." Lizzie finished. "After that, it was working for a guy who never cared about anyone but himself and what others could do for him, who knew how to appear to care, that led to the rest. The creation of the Little Sisters was Fontaine's idea." Lizzie paused for a second, then fixed her statement. "Well, the 'human host' idea was Brigid's. The idea of only using young girls, maybe aged about 10 years old,  _that_  was Fontaine's. Add in some brainwashing, and you have mobile platforms for producing and, to certain extent, refining and reprocessing, ADAM."

The sick look on Sophie's face was pretty much expected, but she toughed it out and swallowed it before asking, "And the genetic manipulation?"

"Splicing in Plasmids and Gene Tonics, which were all made from ADAM." Rachel said simply.

"Of course, there were problems." Lizzie added in.

"Well, I think we can agree that near-instant addiction, leading to numerous attempts, and successes, to cannibalize the Little Sisters, walking ADAM Factories that they were, is something of a problem, wouldn't you say?" Rachel added in slightly sarcastically.

"Hey, it  _wasn't_ near-instant addiction." Lizzie disagreed.

"Oh?" Rachel smirked, a questioning eyebrow raised. "And how so?"

"It depends upon multiple factors including how much you spliced that first time, psychosomatic reaction to the rush, and how often you spliced." Lizzie said matter-of-factly.

"So, it  _could_  have been instant addiction." Rachel pointed out reasonably, smiling smugly.

Lizzie gave Rachel a dirty look before sighing, defeated. "I suppose, yeah, if you had a powerful enough dose for your first splice, then yes, you could become addicted on your first splice."

"Why would you want to 'splice' in the first place?" Sophie asked, looking very sick and reminding the duo that their friend was still in the room.

Rachel put on a thoughtful look. "Well, plenty of reasons. Some obvious stuff for criminal reasons, Plasmids for self-defence or to actively attack someone else in a world without professional-made weapons other than stuff smuggled in, Tonics for various reasons, including affecting a  _look_  of physical fitness with SportsBoost or getting smarter with Brain Boost, getting tougher and stronger with SportsBoost and Armored Shell, getting what seem to be supernatural defenses like Electric Flesh to cut damage from electricity or Electrical Storm to let out a shock when hit with a melee attack of some kind like getting punched or hit with a pipe or a wrench or a flashlight. And that's not even counting the more esoteric splices, like getting cat DNA to have cat eyes, which I've seen, or Anti-TB, which is a Tuburculosis inoculation tonic." She paused to think of some of the other tonics she'd heard of or seen ads for. "Slim-Down is pretty self-explanatory, while ReJuva is basically Botox, but full-body, and Fresh Hair is basically Rogaine. And then there's the drug-related reasons, like the incredible high that comes with splicing, or the occaisional idiot junkie like you'd see in that newer game, Remember Me, who gets addicted to memories."

"How do you get addicted to memories?" Sophie asked confusedly.

Rachel shrugged. "Not sure. In Remember Me, it's probably something to do with the wiring and the way the data of Memories interacts with the human brain, especially with outside memories that don't belong to you. For Splicing, I'm not sure there either. Maybe it's the exact same reason through a different medium, as the way it does it is, when Adam is recycled, it pulls along the memories of the person it was in at the time, latent chemicals imprinting on the ADAM, I think, and that carries those memories over to the next person to use that same ADAM."

Before she could go any further in her explanations, her phone went off, blaring an alarm sound, which startled everyone there. Rachel turned off the alarm, but then her eyes widened near-comically when she saw what it was saying. "Shit! Gotta get to work!" She rushed off to grab her leather jacket and work boots from her room and then sped out the door before anyone could say anything else, somehow not slamming the door on the way out, her footfalls fading rapidly from the ears of those in the apartment, which is partly because of natural stealth, and partly because of the Wrench Lurker Tonic she'd had spliced once. As she reached the street, she was about to jump into her car but realized two things: She didn't have keys on her person (or maybe she did and didn't realize it), and that wasn't her car in her spot, but Sophie's.

With a slightly aggrieved sigh, she set herself to running as fast as she could to the docks without working up too much of a sweat. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so oddly, given the SportsBoost and SportsBoost+ in her system, she made it just in time to clock in and get to work.

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, Lizzie looked at the door with amused bemusement clear on her face. This peaceful reverie was broken moments later when Sophie, who was finally coming out of her horrified funk from the implications of what Rachel had said at the end to try and wrangle one last piece of information before her brain gave out on her.

"Lizzie, why did you splice?"

Lizzie was understandably surprised at the sudden question, but did her best to answer truthfully. "I never actually spliced. Not intentionally anyways." At Sophie's inquisitive look, Lizzie reluctantly continued. "I'm a Little Sister, or I was. The job of a Little Sister is to collect old ADAM, reprocess it through methods best left for another conversation, and then give it back to the people who sold it in the first place, thus recycling it effectively. In the process, however, the remnants of memories and splices in the ADAM I extracted were left behind, especially in the bits of ADAM that never came back out properly. So while I never actually spliced, technically speaking, I still have a few Plasmids and Tonics at my disposal. Incidentally," She continued as an aside. "I am actually smart enough, and a big enough producer of ADAM, to create my own useful Plasmids and Tonics, drinkable or injection-based. Meanwhile, as for Rachel..." She paused, a sad look coming over her face. Then she sighed and finished her thought. "I just, I just didn't want her to die. So I kept her from dying as best I could with whatever Tonics and Plasmids I thought would help her stay alive, like Armored Shell to allow her to tank the damage she wasn't fast enough to dodge, SportsBoost to keep her fast enough and agile enough  _to_ dodge in the first place, Wrench Lurker to keep her quiet and stealthy, an old homemade one I call Anti-Hypnosis to stop Plasmids like Hypnotize Big Daddy and Enrage from affecting her or stuff like Lot 185 from Suchong's work, basically making it work like Lot 192 from Suchong's work, which is an antidote to the Mind Control Plasmids designed by the chinaman and both were commissioned by a con man named Frank Fontaine. Other than that, I just gave her the weapons I thought were appropriate to defend herself, which, if I'm honest with you, was also meant to protect me as well."

"What do you mean by that?"

Lizzie sighed once more. "As Rachel mentioned, Little Sisters were heavily predated upon. Yes, there were a few pedophiles, as she once called them, hunting around, but mostly they were ADAM hunters, splicers crazed enough by their addictions and withdrawals that they were willing to brave a Big Daddy's wrath to try and steal some precious ADAM from a Sister. Big Daddys, they were basically heavily spliced with things like Armored Shell and were huge hulking tanks encased in leather diving suits, designed to soak up damage in the defense of their bonded Sister. I outlived at least three or four Big Daddies assigned to me, the longest living almost 4 months protecting me, but Rachel? She was never actually bonded to me, but chose to protect me and did so for close to a decade. The first few splices I gave her were to make her into a psuedo-Big Daddy, basically living only to protect me, but later, I just wanted her safe and happy." She stopped herself, knowing Rachel probably wouldn't want her to break her best friend.

But Sophie had one last question for her before her mind gave out. "That time, yesterday, where you and her were in a bad part of town, that was all your time in Rapture over the course of the past week, wasn't it?"

Lizzie looked over at her possible new friend, inquisitiveness sharp in her eyes, and nodded. "Yes, we were together in the Rapture Civil War, and if she didn't have my back, I'd be dead. And so would she."

With that, Sophie paused for a moment before standing abruptly, saying "I need to think about this." and heading out the door after putting on tennis shoes for a walk.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, sorry about the info-dump, especially to those of you who have actually played the first and second Bioshock games. But some people haven't played them, and there's at least some info here that is Rachel-&-Lizzie-specific. Plus, it helps to keep those uninformed (as mentioned) and Sophie in the loop!
> 
> The part about Sophie's face being passive, because it's not active, is a slight grievance I've had for awhile about Teal'C's face being called "Impassive". That was my logic about the whole thing, which was actually spawned from the difference between a passive and active camera from playing The Legend of Spyro: Year of the Dragon.
> 
> Also, before you ask, no. I do not know where I put them. All I know is New York City, in College. And kinda near a set of docks, which means a waterfront district is nearby.
> 
> The nap attack was inspired by rocking my coworker on his skates back and forth during a slow period, which he turned into a little thing that "put him to sleep" and he said it would be funny if that kind of thing happened and he fell asleep multiple times. Like, rocking him back and forth, he falls asleep, then wakes himself long enough to be cut off, like "I'm awa-" and fall asleep again. And that sentence has a few too many "Likes".
> 
> Like if you liked that. (Sorry, had to put in a stupid Facebook joke)
> 
> The thing about the middle schooler who crashed (and crashed hard) because of energy drinks? that actually happened. I'm not sure if Chris was sent to the hospital, since it's been awhile since it happened, but I do know that they had an assembly to let everyone know what happened. And it actually was a full can of Monster and a half can of Spike before classes.

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, for inspiration on the scene depicted for the "over the weekend assignment", I used the Ember Island Players episode of Avatar: the Last Airbender.
> 
> That, or Star Wars somehow. I've forgotten.


End file.
